tanija & graham carr: leather sculpture

Looking at one of Tanija & Graham Carr’s vessels you expect that if you were to reach out and touch it you would be met with the smooth, hard texture of well sanded wood.  Instead, the sculptural vessels are pliable and soft under your fingers - a feature of the leather that the artists incise and dye, using traditional tools to achieve the look of carved wood.  Together they hand-cut and stitch raw cowhide, wet-forming the leather over a plywood core.  The couple, who hail from Australia, acknowledge that their background as architects inform the complex structures that make up their 25 year collaboration -  the sculptures are so labor intensive that the Carr’s make only 8-10 pieces each year.

Wet-formed, incised and dyed leather

See more of their work at these galleries:
Habatat Galleries
Handsel Gallery
del Mano Gallery

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